Dana Bradley’s body was arranged in burial fashion by her killer in an area of alder bushes and trees off an old dirt road, away from the eyes of the city on a cold and quiet December evening many years ago.

One of the killer’s last acts at the scene was to tuck her school books carefully under her arm, as in some bizarre act of kindness when, sometime earlier, the monster in him had raged and he had brutally beat her about the head and robbed her of her life….

He said he saw the savageness in the killer that evening, claims he witnessed the horrific murder and the events following it that night.

As a child, he had known the man well. Suffering from his own type of hell with him, Robert says his memories from that day and night were long repressed, along with many other terrible memories from those years.

More than two-and-a-half years ago, after he decided to part ways with booze and take his chances without it, he says his mind healed and the memories surfaced — first of being sexually abused at the hands of the man, then of the murder….

Robert says the RCMP first met with him on Dec. 14, 2011 — the 30th anniversary of Dana’s murder.

According to an RCMP document, the investigation into Robert’s tip continued for 16 months.

The RCMP subsequently informed Robert that none of the avenues related to his tip provided any new evidence to support criminal charges.

In March 2013, the RCMP asked Robert to meet with Dr. Peter Collins, an expert in the field of forensic psychiatry.

“Subsequent to that meeting, you were advised by Dr. Collins that you were not suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and recovered memories, but rather that you were experiencing false memory syndrome,” the document notes.

Robert complained to the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP about the way investigators handled his information. He alleged the RCMP relied on false memory syndrome to make the decision to dismiss his complaint. He also pointed out that false memory syndrome is not recognized in the medical community….

At the same time, the RCMP informed Robert the investigation into his complaint about being sexually abused by the man in the early 1980s had concluded without corroborating evidence to support charges….

Looking back, Robert said the man probably wanted him to go along as a cover, in case he was seen, so that he could say he was taking him to his mother and father.

This time, Robert noted, the man didn’t attempt to drive up the dirt road but stopped on the side of Maddox Cove Road and walked up to where the body was.

“He was looking for his jacket — he didn’t have his jacket on — and he had gotten the booster cables,” Robert said. “So while I was left in the car, there was a car that drove by. He told me that if anyone stops, (to say) he left his new chainsaw up in the woods.”

As outlined in previous media reports, a Shea Heights couple driving north on Maddox Cove Road that night — between midnight and 1 a.m. — noticed a car matching the suspect vehicle parked on the side of the road. They said a passenger side door of the car was open and the dome light was illuminated. They also saw a man standing near the woods. They reported he had no jacket, despite the cold….

They then drove back to the man’s house, where Robert held a work light while the man washed the trunk of the car using cleaning supplies.

“He cleaned out the trunk and then he got me in the backseat of the car and had another go (sexual assault) at me,” Robert said. “And then he brought me home.”….

‘The guy is the real thing’
Tara Bradbury and Glen Whiffen
Published on March 17, 2014

Doctor says man’s story of Dana Bradley murder shouldn’t be written off as false memory syndrome

Part 2 in a three-part series

Good memories from childhood are often recalled fondly. Bad memories, not so much. But what if the memories are so terrible, so horrible, it’s unbearable to live with them?….

He says he saw her murderer sexually assault and kill her by hitting her in the head with a tire iron and that he was there, crying, when the killer laid her out in burial fashion among the trees off an old dirt road just outside the city.

Robert’s relates these memories in spine-tingling detail — how he screamed and begged the man, a close friend of his family, not to leave the body in the winter cold overnight, and of being forced to hold a lamp in the dark as the killer later cleaned out the car trunk.

His throat closes and his chest hurts at times when he recalls his own abuse at the hands of the same man — a man who was convicted in the 1990s of sexually abusing other children, and served time in prison.

Robert would have gone to the police long ago if he had remembered any of what he had seen and experienced.

Now a successful businessman, husband and father, Robert describes always looking back on his childhood fondly, though he admits he had always had a hole, a big blank spot, in his memory.

He drank from the time he was 13 until he was 35, when, he says, the booze caught up with him.

After quitting drinking, he was driving home one day in 2011 when he suddenly began drowning in a wave of memories, which rushed in, bubbling and swirling, to fill the hole.

“I was all alone, and the first memory of the sexual abuse came back, and it came back like a punch in the stomach,” Robert said….

The RCMP investigated Robert’s information for 16 months, then informed him none of the avenues related to his tip had turned up any new evidence. As part of their investigation, police had asked Robert to meet with Dr. Peter Collins, an expert in forensic psychiatry.

According to a police document, Collins advised Robert he was not suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but was experiencing false memory syndrome.

Not a recognized psychiatric disorder, false memory syndrome is used to describe a condition in which a person is affected by memories which aren’t true, but which they strongly believe. The term was developed in the United States by Peter and Pamela Freyd, who also founded the False Memory Syndrome Foundation in 1992….

Dr. Hugh Mirolo is the province’s only neuropsychiatrist and has been declared an expert witness in the courts in the area of neuropsychiatry. The Telegram asked him to meet with Robert, and the doctor believes he is telling the truth, especially since Robert experienced a panic attack and flashback while telling him his story.

“It would be pretty damn difficult for a guy to make that up, and for me to buy it,” said Mirolo, who had Robert’s permission to share his opinions with The Telegram.

“If he is an actor, he is a very, very good actor. He deserves an Oscar.”

Robert’s reaction was consistent with experiences Mirolo has witnessed in the past as a doctor in the United States, working with war veterans. Post-traumatic stress disorder can cause flashbacks that bring them right back to the time and place of a memory so they are reliving it instead of simply recalling it, Mirolo said….

There is a tendency for the brain to repress things that are traumatic, the doctor explained, and it’s as basic as the pleasure principle: we go towards things that are pleasurable and avoid things that aren’t.

“When you have PTSD or (have witnessed) gory events, things like that, those things can be blocked,” Mirolo explained.

“The blockage is not foolproof; things can trigger it. The same goes for regular childhood memories. When I go to my office in the summer and they’re mowing the lawn outside, I remember the house in the country where my dad used to mow the lawn. That smell brings me back in time. This is the same sort of thing.”….

Mirolo doesn’t mince words when asked if he feels Robert was dismissed unfairly by the police, when it comes to false memory syndrome.

‘There’s nothing left I can do,’ says man convinced he witnessed murder
Tara Bradbury and Glen Whiffen
Published on March 18, 2014

….Commission interim chair Ian McPhail wrote in the final report that the forensic psychiatrist’s diagnosis of false memory syndrome didn’t play a role in the attention given to the investigation, and wasn’t the basis for the investigators’ dismissal of the tip.

“I emphasize that, given its place in the investigation, the psychiatric assessment was not conducted to determine whether (Robert) was lying about his memories, which would have impacted the investigation, but rather to determine what the appropriate degree of reliance on those memories would and could be. There is no suggestion in the available material that (Robert) was deceitful.”

Robert told The Telegram Monday he is surprised by what he said is a “sudden and unexpected de-emphasizing” by the police of forensic psychiatrist Peter Collins’ diagnosis.

“Dr. Collins applied for a temporary licence to practice in Newfoundland so he could deliver his false memory syndrome message, and the RCMP could close my tip that very same day,” Robert said. “He appeared to be very important to investigators at the time.

“Things could be much further along if only they had given me the benefit of the doubt.”

When asked how he feels about the lack of evidence turned up by the police in their investigation into his memories, Robert is quick to respond.

“I don’t think they looked hard enough,” he said. “I think there were a lot of investigational techniques not used. I think they focused on trying to discredit me, rather than try to find evidence. It was a shallow investigation.”….

According to a police document Collins, an expert in forensic psychiatry, advised Robert he was not suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but was experiencing false memory syndrome, a term used to describe a condition in which a person is affected by memories that aren’t true, but which they strongly believe.

Describing Abusive Behavior as “Young Love”
Proponents of the witch-hunt narrative have a particular kind of blindness to real abuse. That is, they don’t see sexual abuse in places where it is obvious to others. The book (The Witch-Hunt Narrative) is full of examples where real abuse is described as a false accusation or false conviction by proponents of the narrative. https://blogs.brown.edu/rcheit/2014/04/09/describing-abusive-behavior-as-young-love/#more